Broadhurst, Gerald Henry

He was the son of Captain Arthur Brooks Broadhurst, 14th Hussars, and Blanche, (daughter of Captain Robert Johnson-Stewart of Glasserton and Physgill, Wigton) of Penrith, Cumberland. He came to Winchester as an Exhibitioner from West Downs School. He was Head of his House his last year, a member of Sixth Book and a Commoner Prefect and stood on Dress for Commoner XV. In 1910 he passed fifth on the list into Woolwich, where he won the Tombs Memorial Scholarship, and was gazetted in December 1911 to the 52nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery.

He went to France with the original Expeditionary Force and was severely wounded at Le Cateau on August 26th 1914. He returned to France in February 1915, this time with 103 Battery in 31 Brigade. Broadhurst was in the front line, observing for his battery, during the Second Battle of Ypres, an action which put huge pressure on the British forces. He was last seen on May 8th 1915, near Ypres. His telephone wires had been repeatedly severed by shell fire and the enemy had broken through on his right. He had himself been wounded, but after a hasty dressing a short distance behind the line, returned to his post and remained there until the Germans over-ran his position, continuing to direct the fire of his guns and helping thereby to check the advancing enemy till reinforcements could be brought up.

He was mortally wounded during this action, and died in German hands shortly afterwards. He was buried by the Germans where he died but his body was never recovered. He is commemorated in panels 5 and 9 of the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

His commanding officer wrote to his father making it clear he was an excellent officer. “It must be some consolation that, as his Battery Commander, I can assure you that no more gallant officer has fallen in the war than your son. He was my chief support and helper in the most critical times that I have been through since I came out here, and his loss was a very serious one, not only to his battery, but for the whole of the infantry in the section which we were holding…”

He was an excellent horseman and in the spring of 1914 won the Kildare heavy-weight point-to-point race.